The Nordic Africa Institute

Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues

Senior researcher

Cristina, photo.

Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues is a researcher in interdisciplinary African Studies, specialised in Angola and Portuguese speaking African countries and on urban transformation, youth, rural-urban migration and urban strategies.

Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues is specialised in African Studies and has coordinated several research projects. Main research areas are urban anthropology and sociology, focusing the Portuguese speaking African countries, particularly Angola, and involving qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and analysis.

Since 2007, the projects where she participated as principal investigator or country coordinator are directly related to African cities and involve international Euro/African partnerships and networks: Dynamics of Local Urban Development in Angola and Mozambique (2007-2011, IRD, France); Mining Cities in Africa (2009-2013, ESRC-DFID, UK); Sociospatial Reconfigurations in Cities of Angola and Mozambique (2012-2014, Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology).

As a researcher, she has worked, among others, about: Rapid Urbanization in Luanda and Maputo: impacts of war and socioeconomic transformations (80’s and 90’s) (1998-2002, Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology); Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Angola and Mozambique (2004-2006, Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology); The Impact of Informal Economy in the Reduction of Poverty and Social Exclusion and its Interactions with Social Protection (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde) (for the ILO, 2004-2007).

As a consultant, the assignments related to urban issues include socioeconomic assessments for Urban Plans, Household Surveys and studies in the areas of Migration, Education, or Development.

The principal publications about urban Africa include ‘From family solidarity to social classes: urban stratification in Angola (Luanda and Ondjiva)’ (Journal of Southern African Studies, 2007); ‘Survival and Social Reproduction Strategies in Angolan Cities’ (Africa Today, 2007); ‘Angolan Cities: urban (re)segregation?’ (in Locatelli & Nugent, African Cities: competing claims on urban spaces, 2009); ‘Angola’s southern border: entrepreneurship opportunities and the state in Cunene’ (Journal of Modern African Studies, 2010); ‘Angola’s Planned and Unplanned Urban Growth: diamond mining towns in the Lunda provinces’ (Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 2012).